Maneater
by Ytak
Summary: Kaitou Kid catches the attention of a cursed idol during a heist. Not a Happy Ending.


Maneater

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With a cackle, which some would call mad, Kaitou Kid bounced over the grasping hands of the Taskforce. He landed on top of one glass-enclosed display before bouncing from one to another. Like some sort of mad sing-along, he continued his path through the museum with the police officers tripping over each other and Nakamori cursing up a bluestreak.

For one moment, he paused on top of one case, giving the officers just enough time to make it to the case before he flipped off of it with the most impressive acrobatics yet and out a window that seemed to open by magic at his approach.

Nakamori let out one last volley of curses at the thief before collapsing to the ground out of breath, followed by a good chunk of the Taskforce.

The overhead lights began to flicker slowly on, as one of the members of the Taskforce realized that they could do a better job of investigating the crime scene if they had the proper lights and not just the emergency lights that had been the only light source for the heist.

As the lights flickered on, one of the display cases flickered with its own light for a moment, as the carved jade idol inside glowed briefly with its own light. And the eyes in carved face of the woman on it gleamed with hunger.

---

Kaito flopped onto his bed. He wore a 'cat who got into the cream' grin across his face now that he could grin and get away with it. Absently, he tossed the object of the night's heist up and down as he reviewed the night. 'It really couldn't have gone any better,' he thought. 'Well, I'd better put this away. No way mom will be able to ignore my "night job" if she finds it.'

He sprung from the bed and walked to the door, passing the dresser mirror. Just as he put his hand on the doorknob, he had to take a step back and look in the mirror again. He frowned to himself. 'I swear I saw a face in it. Well, that wasn't my own.' Kaito shrugged his shoulders. It had been a busy night and he was still riding high from the heist. 'Even I can't completely turn off my mind after one,' he thought, wirly as he slipped into the secret room.

Humming a nameless tune, Katio walked to one of the shelves and pulled a box off of it. He grinned as he pushed a button on it and out popped a drawer. Putting the box down a moment, he whipped out a handkerchief and wiped down the gem before setting it in the box and closing the drawer.

Still humming the nameless tune, he slipped out of the room and headed to the bathroom for a shower before bed.

"Are you done with your homework, Kaito?" his mother called from somewhere downstairs.

"Yep! I finished it before going out," he replied.

"Good. I don't want to hear about any after school activities affecting your grades."

"I won't!" Kaito said, feeling a little nervous and guilty. 'Of course she knows,' he thought, 'And she _won't_ let it affect school without a really, really good reason.'

He quickly walked into the bathroom and closed the door before his mother could cause any more of a guilt trip on him. 'Shower time!' he thought gleefully, cranking the hot water all the way on and letting the bathroom get nice and steamy before turning it down and hopping into the shower.

When he stepped out of the shower, he let out a startled yelp and fell back, barely catching himself. The steam had gathered together to create a misty body of sorts. A moment later, the form disappeared and the steam was released back into the bathroom.

Shaking slightly, he pulled himself out of the shower and walked tentatively to the middle of the room. With a sweeping gaze, Kaito looked around the room for the source of the optical illusion. He squeaked as he caught sight of figure in the mirror. Whipping his head around, he saw that there was no one else in the room.

He turned slowly and looked back at the mirror. A comely, nearly clothesless woman grinned at him hungrily before fading away with the rest of the steam on the mirror.

Kaito shivered and dressed very quickly, not quite sprinting to his bedroom and into bed. He would not admit that he spent the night hiding under the covers. Especially after he caught a glimpse of what looked like the woman in his bedroom mirror, staring at him with hungry eyes and gleaming fangs.

"You don't look so well, Kaito," his mother observed as she put out a plate of pancakes for him.

Kaito grunted, "I just couldn't sleep. I must've eaten something funny last night because I had the oddest...dreams."

"Hm, well, don't fall asleep at school," she said, handing him a lunch on the way out.

"Okay," he said, giving her a quick hug before jogging down the street.

His mask dropped slightly and the nervous tic that he had been suppressing started up. Resolutely, he did not look into any reflective surface because every surface showed the woman. And Kaito was fairly certain that it seemed more tangible every time he saw her.

With great effort, he suppressed the nervous tic and walked into class with his normal stride that he always did after a successful Kid heist. For a brief moment, his aplomb wavered at he caught sight of the windows.

_She_ was there. Her appearance looked more like she was merely on the other side of the window rather than the reflection. And no one else noticed her.

By lunchtime, Kaito felt completely strung out and was seriously considering skipping school. To his disappointment, the one person he thought had a chance to help him, Koizumi, was not in school.

And when he went to the bathroom, Kaito always made sure there was another guy in the room. The feeling that he did not want to be alone with it increased with each passing minute.

He sat back down at his desk for lunch and toyed with the lunch his mother gave him that morning. 'She must've been concerned,' he noted, 'because its been a while since she packed my favorite lunch.'

"Hey, Kaito!" someone yelled in his ear, causing him to yelp. He turned around an glared. It was Aoko. "It looked like you were off in lala-land. You must've been because that's the only time I can scare you like that."

"You yelled in my ear! Any sane person would act that way!" he griped.

"Baby," she muttered. A thoughtful look crossed her face. "Can I talk to you for a minute? Somewhere private?"

Kaito shrugged, "Sure."

They walked outside and sat down under a tree farthest from the school (and the woman in the reflective surfaces).

"You've been jumpy today, Kaito," Aoko started off.

He debated lying but he was tired of lying to her about Kid. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"In fact," she said, a suspicious tone creeping into her voice, "You flinch or twitch when you look at the windows. I think I even saw you flinch when you walked by the trophy case. It has windows and glass."

'Damn. She really is her father's daughter,' Kaito thought drawly. "Really?" he said, inviting her to continue.

She shot him an irritated look and proceeded to drop the bombshell, "And if it's anything like that... woman I've been seeing in reflective surfaces, then I don't blame you."

A warning bell rang alerting them that lunch was almost over. "We'll talk about it after school," Aoko said, running back to the building. Kaito followed after her at a slightly slower pace, trying to figure out what was going on.

As the school day progressed, Kaito observed that Aoko pointedly did not look at any reflective surfaces. It was almost if she was giving the 'woman' the cold shoulder. Despite his discomfort, Kaito found her behavior amusing.

He was relieved when the final bell for the day rang. Aoko hopped out of her seat and shot for the ladies room. Kaito had to chuckle. He could tell by her squirming that she had needed to answer the call of nature for the last half hour. Anxiously, he waited for her to return. The classroom was quickly emptying out and the people assigned to cleaning were out of the room getting the supplies. The woman in the window seemed to be waiting for something.

Kaito let out the breath he had been holding when Aoko strolled back into the room. She looked far more relaxed than she had at lunch. "Ah! Kaito," she said, walking to his desk, "I remembered something I have to take care of but I'll meet you at your house for dinner?"

"Yeah, sure," he said. "It'll be just us. Mom has dinner plans with friends."

A slight chill ran down his spine from the smile she gave him. "Good. I'll see you around six."

Kaito hurried home. He was determined not to be bothered the 'woman' whenever he saw her. It took his best mask to hide how he was really feeling every time he saw her. He would have called her behavior flirty if it did not look like she was a cat and he was a mouse and she was simply playing with him.

Slipping into the house, he pulled all the curtains over the windows so he did not have to see her. 'It's not like I need that much light to see,' he thought, 'I'd know my way around here if it were pitch black.'

He sprinted up to his room, changing in record time, made a quick stop in the secret room and grabbed the jewel from the previous night's heist. Then he headed out to return it to Inspector Nakamori. 'Might as well be prompt about it. He doesn't need an aneurysm.'

As it was, he barely had time to grab some take-out pizza and get home before Aoko. The house was as dark as he left it which was a little unnerving since the sun was still up. His nerves still were wound tight. He had nearly messed up the delivery of the jewel to Nakamori because he found her presence that distracting. She had appeared on any surface that had the slightest chance of reflecting light.

And then she disappeared.

Kaito could not figure it out but it seemed that she simply went away on her own. The sudden absence was almost as startling as her first real appearance. Kaito was at a loss as what to make of the disappearance. 'But I'm not complaining,' he thought, setting the pizza on the table and flicking on a light.

"Ack!" he yelped, jumping back in surprise. Aoko leaned up against the back door leading out of the house. "Gee, Aoko, what are you doing?"

She gave him a frighteningly toothy grin and walked to the kitchen table and place something on it.

Kaito mentally catalogued it before he realized. It was one of the idols on display at the museum last night. "Aoko, what are you doing with that?"

"Doing the bidding of my master," she said, walking over to one of the drawers and pulling out a long knife. Faster than he had seen her move before, she was back by the table.

He watched her deliberately lift the knife and, to his horror, slash her own throat. The blood gushed from her neck and liberally covered the table. The next few seconds it took for him to reach her and try to stem the flow of blood felt like an eternity.

A flash of light drew his attention upward. With an expression of complete and utter shock, there sat the 'woman.' She proceed to smear some more of Aoko's body on herself as Kaito dragged Aoko away from her.

The detailed part of his mind noticed that the idol was gone.

She licked a finger and seemed to think about the taste. With a predatory grin that really did stretch from ear to ear, she turned and looked straight at Kaito.

Then she was on him. He felt blinding pain in his neck as she bite down and tore off a chunk of his flesh and swallowed it whole.

The yell Kaito would have given remained unborn as she proceeded to ripe out his throat. His attempts to fight free were futile as she pinned him to the ground and rent his body limb from limb, feasting on his flesh.

And the moment she was finally satiated, she disappeared in a flash. The idol reappeared in the museum, baffling security who had been investigating its disappearance.

* * *

Written for the annual spook_me Halloween challenge. Not a Happy Ending.


End file.
